When did the American Occupation of Japan Really End? Japanese-American Relations 1952–1960

FORMALLY, Japan regained her sovereignty on 28 April 1952; but, in spirit, the Occupation may have ended a year earlier, on 16 April 1951, when General MacArthur left Tokyo. It could also be claimed that the Occupation, as originally conceived; had ended earlier still in March 1949 when the American economic ‘adviser’ Joseph Dodge addressed Japanese and foreign journalists on his nine principles of new economic policy. Clearly, no single date can satisfactorily mark the ending of Japan's lengthy Occupation, for such an ending involved attitudes as well as policies, neither of which followed the tidy dictates of the San Francisco Treaty.